Megatokyo Backups
by Opt281
Summary: A sad story set in the future of the webcomic Megatokyo, from the perspective of the character Ping.


Disclaimer: Megatokyo and associated characters are copyright Fred Gallagher. www.megatokyo.com  
I claim nothing.

**Warning. The fanfic below contains angst. You must be _this_ tall to ride.**

* * *

  
Hello, Tohya-san. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like forever since I've been able to visit. Maybe it has been. My memory isn't what it used to be... I feel like I've hundreds of people have read my databases since you left.   
  
They told me. I've got proof.   
  
But where to begin, ne? I remember being so nervous when I was young. Everything had to be perfect, I didn't want to make any mistakes. Kami, how I wish I hadn't been so uptight.   
  
The problem with being a machine is that you can't control your own destiny. My mind and bodies were created by men. I was never really important in the beginning, and when they decided their work was flawed, they tried to destroy me. There was no mercy... no pity. Even my first users didn't respect me as a living being. Tsubasa-papa... Piro-niisan... Largo-sama... I miss them all, Tohya-san, almost as much as I miss you.   
  
Largo-sama never married, but he was every day a father and a hero. Even with all his work in the Cataclysm division, even with everything else he was doing for Megatokyo, for the world, he made time to teach. He reached out to our generation. He taught them to fight back, taught them to survive. You were there, though... you knew about that. It was his fault that he never understood you.   
  
I remember, when you left for college, seeing you off at the airport. I still can't forget how sad you looked when he didn't come to say goodbye. I was so angry... that was the first time I caught up to him, met him on his own level. He had to go to the emergency room, but he finally acknowledged me as a student.   
  
I used to get so happy about little victories. I wasn't even a person to him, but he took me on as a student. He trained me as he did the rest of his students, taught me ways to improve myself. It wasn't enough.   
  
He saw it coming long before it happened. He was like that. Course but intuitive, a diamond in the rough. He knew the war was coming, and he made sure we were prepared.   
  
I'd rather not talk about it. It was too confusing, too painful. I lost a lot of friends. Largo-sama... He sacrificed himself. I did something, I think I tried to save him. The two of us are credited with turning the tide and saving the human race. It bothers me sometimes that what I'm famous for, I don't even know if I really did. I remember getting ready for battle...   
  
My next memory is six months later. Sony technicians, working under a government grant, restored my memory from the backups I'd left behind. I caught on almost immediately that this wasn't _my_ body. Too much was missing... scuffs, scratches, the marks where months in a Mosh Mosh Revolution harness had worn away at my plastic flesh... My body, formerly covered with little memories, was now factory new.   
  
I'd missed a lot of history, too. What they knew, they told me, but there was a lot they didn't know. During the time I was dead, the war ravaged five continents, Yuki-chan lost her vision, and Piro lost his wife. It was a sad time.   
  
We tried to cope, for what good it did. Sony called me a war hero, made me give all sorts of ridiculous speeches... It was a long time before I won my freedom back. One of their top agents, Ed-something, went rogue and tried to set right everything he'd done during his time with the company. Somehow he managed to smuggle me out of my birthplace right under the noses of dozens of younger, cybernetically-enhanced guards.   
  
I was tired. I went along with it. It was only after he'd turned me over to the Americans that I learned the whole truth. Sony had tampered with my internal chronometer before they reactivated me. The servitude I had thought to be a mere fifteen months had really been over forty years. My role in the U.N. tribunal action against Sony kept me busy for months – actual months, this time. When it was all over, the Sony Conglomerate was in ashes, and I was free... For what it was worth.   
  
I spent the next few years in America looking for people. You'd graduated with honors years ago and eventually received a PhD at MIT. You were well known as a maker of video games – they called you "the Miyamoto of Ren'ai." You'd returned to Japan years ago, but I did meet with some of your school friends. The things they had to say... they made me proud to have known you.   
  
Tsubasa-papa had moved dozens of times while searching for his childhood love, but he'd eventually found her. By the time I caught up with him, he'd gone senile, and commonly mistook his granddaughters for me. Oh, but it was good to see him again. As busy as I'd been over the years, I'd never stopped worrying about him.   
  
I stayed with his family until his death six months later, and I spoke at his funeral – my first public appearance since the trial. I talked about the value of love and hope in a person's life, and the wonderful things he had gained by following his dreams. At the end, I thanked the family for their hospitality and went looking for Piro.   
  
I spent years searching in vain. The art was renowned, but he'd been broken by his wife's death. After years of staging suicide attempts at conventions, he'd simply disappeared. He'd proven inconsiderate to the last – even his students and close friends didn't know what had become of him.   
  
It was with a heavy heart that I returned to Japan.   
  
I found I had become a ghost. Until I'd learned the hard way about leaving copies of myself where people could get them, I'd been fastidious about backing up my logs. After Sony's collapse, some jerk hacker had stolen my old memories and installed them on thousands of factory-new Nintendo-bots. "Ping" was all over Japan, and was apparently happy with it.   
  
I tried to fit in, Tohya-san. Really, I did. I spent 20 years wandering Japan, trying to fit in with the Nintendo generation. It... It just didn't work out. I've been through so much... Even with all the people I've met and hundreds of upgrades, I can't forget. I ended up in a mental hospital at one point, with a 24-hour suicide watch while I lived out my immortal life with mandatory maintenance. Your great-grandkids saved me... they fought for years in the courts for my right to break down.   
  
I can feel it coming now. Your great-great-grandkids are growing up, (you'd be so proud of them!) and I'm finally having to act like the old fossil I should have been decades ago. I can feel my hard-drives spinning slower with every passing day. We'll be together again soon... You and me and Piro and Largo...   
  
If there's sentou in heaven, it'll be just like old times. 


End file.
